Are Dolphins in on Garrard or are they going to suck for Luck?

The Dolphins worked out NFL washout quarterbacks Trent Edwards and Brodie Croyle on Tuesday and who knows how much more time/money for plane tickets/effort they'll waste on guys that never made it in the league before we know what they're really going to do at QB the rest of the season.

And that brings up today's greater question: What are the Dolphins doing the rest of this season? What is the point?

If the point is to get through and basically survive, then so be it. I get that. There's a movement on the street espoused by a growing number of fans backing this approach to the rest of the 2011 season.

It's known as Suck for Luck.

The movement's premise is that this Dolphins season is over. The movement wants the Dolphins to lose every game they can in hopes of getting in position to draft Stanford quarterback Andrew Luck next year.

It is tortured logic. But I get it.

There's another less popular movement out there, too. I know it's there because I'm its leader. It's called never give up, never give in, play hard every down, try to win every remaining play, every remaining quarter, every remaining minute and see where the chips fell once the season is over.

If that means the Dolphins win four games this year, so be it. If they salvage eight wins, so be it.

The movement even holds out hope the Dolphins can try to get maybe nine wins and back into the playoffs. (Yeah, I know. I'm stupid.)

But it is my nature to be competitive. It is my nature to not give up -- even when the situation seems impossible and the odds are as long as east is distant from west.

So which camp do the Dolphins fall into?

Until today I was convinced the team was still in the scratch-and-claw to the end mode.

Now, I have to wonder.

The thing that gives me pause how much the Dolphins really, really want to win is how they're handling their current quarterback problem.

As you know, Chad Henne is injured. It is serious.

Henne likely will miss a couple of games with a separated (non-throwing) left shoulder but could also be done for the remainder of the season if he requires surgery. The probability he needs surgery and will miss the rest of the year is quite real and serious. Henne doesn't want that route, which is why he's expected to hear back on a second opinion this week, but the matter is not really in his hands.

In the meanwhile, the Dolphins have been searching for a quarterback. And that's where the problem festers.

Aisde from wasting time with never-was types, the Dolphins talked in the past 36 hours to David Garrard's representation. They tried to sign the former Jacksonville Jaguars starter but talks stalled over that which drives or stalls practically all talks -- money.

Garrard, who threw 23 TDs to 15 INTs in Jacksonville last year, wants at least a portion of his pro-rated salary guaranteed, according to various reports including one in The Herald. Garrad doesn't just want to come to Miami one week and find himself unemployed a week or two later. He wants to go somewhere to find some solid footing and the way to get that is through guaranteed money.

The Dolphins apparently have balked at such a thought of signing Garrard to such a deal, according to the reports. After all, they have a budget, you know.

So the team that guaranteed all or parts of the 2011 salaries for Benny Sapp, Dante Rosario and Larry Johnson and last week signed Nate Jones, paid him for a week, then cut him on Tuesday, doesn't want to give Garrard, who is better than all those guys combined, that kind of deal.

It is obviously a money-saving move. But to me it seems like much more than that.

It is a move that speaks to not doing all that can be done to win. Garrard happens to be the only quarterback on the market not named Favre that has won and taken a team to the playoffs and played at a Pro Bowl level. There is no issue of talent here.

He is better than Croyle and Edwards and any of the other scrub the Dolphins are apparently toying with now.

No, Garrard's not in his prime. He's 33 years old. No, he isn't a long term answer as a starter, but I got news for the folks over at Dolphins camp -- seize the day, people, because your tomorrows are not promised. Trust me on this.

Garrard might not take the team to great heights. But that doesn't change the fact he's more talented than anyone else out there -- even I know that. So maybe he could catch lightning and do the improbable given the chance.

The Dolphins cannot say, for example, they believed (insert name of scrub here) has more talent than Garrard or is better than Garrard because no one on the QB market believably fits that description.

So failing to sign Garrard in the next few days means the Dolphins will have picked saving money over possibly saving the season or at the very least saving face.

That's the message they're sending if they continue to pinch pennies on players they'll eventually end up cutting again in a week or two. They took this tack before. They pinched pennies and we got Marc Colombo instead of Bryant McKinnie. We got Dante Rosario instead of say, Jeremy Shockey or Greg Olsen.

And we got Matt Moore instead of any legtimate QB that was on the market when free agency opened -- some of which are doing quite well, thanks.

Bottom line?

The Dolphins can pretend they're still trying to win this year. But when the personnel moves don't shadow those words, we can no longer believe the words. If they sign players we all know are inferior instead of adding players that are clearly superior -- only one month into the season and with 12 games yet to play -- the moves will uncover them as a team that has waved the white flag.

If that happens at the quarterback position and the player they pass up is even better than the guy (Moore) who is likely to be starting their next game, that is worse than waving the white flag. That's commiting fraud against the fan base and the veterans in the locker room who still want to win and think they can.

It is walking away from a solution, however imperfect, in order to offer a worse, much more imperfect solution everyone knows cannot fly.

So the Dolphins have a choice now. They can sign David Garrard because they're looking for a quarterback and he's the best available and normally professional football teams are in the business of adding the best possible players available to them.

Or they can go another direction. Yes, they can go cheaper. And then we would be forced to start believing the Dolphins are truly in Suck for Luck mode.

[NOTES: As I told you above, the Dolphins cut cornerback Nate Jones on Tuesday. No, they didn't announce it because they don't give a crap about you knowing the comings and goings of their roster. They signed offensive lineman Will Baker from the Tampa Bay practice squad and no, they didn't announce that, either ...The club waived RB Nic Grigsby and OL D.J. Jones from the practice squad, not that they announced that either.

The team also added some Asian dude to the practice squad. Guy looks like a mini-Sumo so I suppose he's a nose tackle or fullback. Yes, he was in the locker room and no, the team did not release this transaction, either. I'll get you the name when I find it out. [Update: Name is Isaako Aaitui]. I'm starting to get the drift the Dolphins don't care about us. It amazes me they announce ALL their roster moves in a league-wide memo to the 31 other teams they're in competition with -- telling the people who are trying to take their heads off everything they're doing. But they don't bother announcing those same transactions in a timely manner to you, the fans who follow the team and buy tickets. Andy they wonder why they can't sell out games.]